~ “I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” Ronald Reagan.

“It was a cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Thus began George Orwell’s prophetic novel, 1984, written forty years earlier, preparing the reader for a dystopian future under socialism – a society of great suffering and injustice, and bereft of reason. This symbol of the thirteenth stroke brings into question what transpired through all the previous twelve hours, when inhumanity triumphed over our society, destroying our time and history itself.

In Orwell’s tale, words were constantly being removed from the language and history repeatedly revised so that the citizens could no longer formulate thoughts. The character, Winston Smith, explains, “He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” We live in similar times, perhaps not as dramatically, but certainly equally disturbing. We are witness to ongoing destruction of our vocabulary, disintegration of the family unit, isolation and disorientation of the individual, demolition of historic monuments, whitewashed history, and a tampering of time, all combining to extinguish and remake our society. The focus of this diminished schooling and re-education is our young.

“British schools are removing analog clocks from exam halls because kids can’t read them,” reported Paul Bois, in the Daily Wire, April 2, 2019, with the subheading, “Many educators are phasing out analog clocks…” Rather than teach the kids to read the time, the educators are removing the clocks; this is happening in the US, as well. An emailed message from a teacher in the US read, “I get fifth graders asking me what time it is; there are two clocks in my classroom.” Where are the parents? And why can’t this teacher with two clocks set aside five minutes a day to teach what should have been taught in Kindergarten?

Studies have shown that being able to tell time on an analog clock is good for the brain and the mind. It enhances the children’s cognitive and creative skills and helps them to visualize and learn time management – to understand the passage of time and how much time is left to complete a task. It boosts their abilities to solve complex mathematical manipulations, with increments and fractions comparable to similar concepts in other activities – even to grasp and learn map direction. Of course, the academics and psychologists are aware, yet the regression continues as we move closer to thirteen o’clock.

Another methodical and consistent destruction to our children’s conceptualization, creativity, and ability to work through and solve problems is the removal of cursive writing from the curriculum. Suzanne Baruch Asherson, occupational therapist, wrote in the New York Times (April 13, 2013), “Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else.” It stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, leading to increased comprehension, expression, critical thinking, working memory, and higher SAT scores – skills not achieved from printing and typing[…]

If you want proof the Democrats and their compatriots in government agencies and in the court system are at war with those on the right, you only need to follow judges’ rulings and state governments’ decisions against the travel ban, sanctuary cities, and most recently, the water rule. The California U.S. attorney is ignoring the new executive order repealing the EPA water rule. He’s rejecting the authority of the new leadership in the EPA under Scott Pruitt.

The Democrats are completely lawless and have abandoned the constitution – the rule of law – so they can have full control. Daniel Greenfield’s article, Wednesday, The New Civil War, capsulizes our situation perfectly:

“A civil war has begun.

This civil war is very different than the last one. There are no cannons or cavalry charges. The left doesn’t want to secede. It wants to rule. Political conflicts become civil wars when one side refuses to accept the existing authority. The left has rejected all forms of authority that it doesn’t control.”

They simply say, Trump is not the rightful president.

When the former president was in office, the federal government made all the decisions but now that Donald Trump is in office, the states are to make the decisions with California in the lead. The case most exemplative is that of the U.S. attorney and the state of California against Greka Oil & Gas[…]

Dr. Duke Pesta is Academic Director of FreedomProject Education, a fully accredited, Common Core Free, online Classical school, built on Judeo-Christian values for students from Kindergarten through High School. As part of FPE’s outreach ministry, Dr. Pesta has delivered more than 350 talks around the country alerting parents to the Dangers of Common Core.

Religious persecution in the United States has just escalated to a whole new level as a U. S. District Judge David Bunning issued an order to incarcerate Kentucky County Clerk, Kim Davis Rowan, until Rowan agrees to comply with his order to issue marriage licenses to for all couples.

During her 20-minute testimony, Davis informed the court that “You can’t be separated from something that’s in your heart and in your soul…My conscience will not allow it. God’s moral law convicts me and conflicts with my duties.”

The ACLU wanted the judge to fine Davis but since various organizations are fundraising on Davis’ behalf and Davis “made it clear the fine wouldn’t change anything,” Bunning decided that fines were not enough to force Davis into compliance.

Davis’ attorney, Mac Staver’s response to his client’s incarceration is shock, “This wasn’t even what was part of the original request from the plaintiffs in this case…The judge went way beyond…. Kim Davis might be jailed for her conscience, but her conscience is free.”

Bunning has ordered the Deputy Clerk to court this afternoon where they will have to inform the court of their intent to comply or not with his earlier ruling to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

The gay mafia with the mainstream media in tow ambushed Davis at her workplace the other day. You can see the video here.

Bunning’s order has escalated religious persecution in the United States, which has been steady rising the past several years to a completely new level.

Lastly, how would the federal government handle a Muslim refusing to issue marriage licenses for gay couples?

Would that individual be persecuted and incarcerated by the federal government? I doubt it very much.

Education Secretary Arnie Duncan is reminding parents in America “that all your children belong to them”. In a not-so-very veiled threat Secretary Duncan states the Federal Government will step in if parents continue to opt their children out of Common Core testing.

(Via Doug Ross Journal) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a veiled threat to the parents and students who choose to opt out of Common Core testing – The Feds “have an obligation to step in.”

Federal law, under No Child Left Behind, requires 95 percent of students in a state to take the annual standardized tests in reading and math from grades 3-8. It is a requirement which until now has never needed enforcement or consideration….

While there are many parents in New York of all ethnicities who do not involve themselves in the education of their children, those parents who do play a role and opted out of the Common Cores exams the past week and a half were diverse.

For Duncan, to imply that only Caucasian parents opt out of Common Core because they are racist and Blacks and parents of other ethnicities are not opting out is in itself racist and hyperbolic.

Moreover, it implies that the latter are all too ignorant and lazy to make educated choices on behalf of their children.

Just as not everyone in various ethnic groups voted for Barack Obama, not everyone in the inferred ethnic groups are not not opting their children out the tests.

Marxist elites such as Duncan are a trip. They are incapable of comprehending that they have overused of the race card. No one is buying the talking points or threats from the bullies in Washington, DC. H/t Lady Raven.

On a final note, what does it say about Common Core when an assumed Progressive state such as New York has so many parents opting out?

The noose is tightening for data/student privacy concerns. Congress is trying to expand federal psychological profiling on children via educational data sets and the reauthorization of longitudinal data sets. I just received this tonight from American Principles in Action:

SETRA is scheduled to be voted on Wednesday, February 25th in the U.S. House—even though the Senate has not yet voted on the bill. Congressional leadership intends to call a vote on the matter in both the House and the Senate this week, despite neither body holding a hearing on the bill.

‘SETRA is dangerous legislation that would expand federal psychological profiling of children through expanding research on ‘social and emotional learning,’’ said Jane Robbins, Senior Fellow at American Principles in Action. ‘It would facilitate sharing of education statistics across states and agencies. It would continue to rely on the now-gutted FERPA statute to protect student data. SETRA must be defeated to protect student privacy rights.’

Emmett McGroarty, Director of Education at American Principles in Action, said, ‘Leadership is betraying the Constitution and the American people by rushing this bill through. Having so blithely disrespected the American people, it is difficult to see how they will ever regain their trust.’

American Principles in Action’s concerns with SETRA are three-fold:

1.) SETRA reauthorizes ESRA, the Education Sciences Reform Act, first passed in 2002, which facilitates intrusive data collection on students. ESRA began the idea of state longitudinal databases, which created the structure that would facilitate a de facto national student database. ESRA also eliminated previous penalties for sharing and otherwise misusing student data.

2.) SETRA allows for psychological profiling of our children, raising serious privacy concerns. Section 132, page 28 of SETRA: “…and which may include research on social and emotional learning, and the acquisition of competencies and skills, including the ability to think critically, solve complex problems, evaluate evidence, and communicate effectively…”This means the federal government will continue to promote collection of students’ psychological information. APIA does not support allowing the federal government to maintain psychological dossiers on our children.

3.) SETRA depends on FERPA to protect student privacy, legislation that is now outdated and has been gutted by regulation. FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, passed in 1974, and is no longer sufficient to protect student privacy in the age of technology. Even worse, the Obama Administration gutted FERPA so that it no longer offers the protections it once did.

American Principles In Action is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to preserving and propagating the fundamental principles on which our country was founded. It aims to return our nation to an understanding that governance via these timeless principles will strengthen us as a country.

For further information or to schedule an interview with Jane Robbins or Emmett McGroarty, please contact Kate Bryan at American Principles in Action at 202-503-2010 or kbryan@americanprinciplesproject.org.